Twitter Follows Facebook With Mobile App Install Ads

Twitter on Thursday announced that it’s officially rolling out a new type of advertisement — one that Facebook has had for quite some time now — that will promote advertisements inside of its feed. Users will soon start to see advertisements for applications that allow end-users to click through and automatically install them on an iOS or Android device.

The ads are powered by MoPub’s advertising exchange, Twitter said, and potential advertisers have the option of tapping into Twitter’s 241 million users or up to 1 billion devices that aren’t on Twitter but are still tapped in to the MoPub ad exchange.

The ads will complement Twitter’s existing revenue drivers, including cards and promoted tweets. Twitter said early partners during private beta tests, including Spotify, Kabam, HotelTonight, Gree, GetTaxi and Deezer, saw “promising results.” The company is also testing full-screen advertisements across the Twitter Publisher Network.

Ads are going to be key for Twitter’s growth, but the company potentially faces the same problem Facebook has — littering its news feed with so much extra content that it starts to become off-putting for end-users.